It’s August already and the summer is almost over. I can’t believe how time has flown. I’m not sure where June and July went. It feels like just last week that spring classes were ending and summer classes beginning.

School will be starting up again in a few short weeks. We’ll have a full cohort of students back on campus. The lines for coffee will be never-ending and parking will be nowhere to be found. Life will definitely get more exciting.

Here are the suggestions from UCF Libraries faculty and staff to help you get back in the mindset for learning. They range from academic subjects to serious fiction to a favorite comic. Welcome to the 2017-18 academic year!

Click on the link below to see the full list of books along with their descriptions and catalog links.

The Student Union side of the 3rd floor is now open! This means that the front side of the 3rd floor is now closed for work on the sprinklers. These items are inaccessible: Books with call numbers HT1507- M, Oversize books J-Z, Media and Current Periodicals. Search for the item you would like in the UCF catalog and click on Place a Hold in the bottom right corner of the record. Your item will be retrieved and you will be notified to pick it up at the Circulation Desk.
A path remains open to the LibTech Desk from the “Bank of 2 elevators” and North and East stairs.
Only one elevator remains open in the “Bank of 3” elevators on the south side of the building as work continues on the other 2 elevators.

The west stairwell is currently closed. All others are open.

Work continues on the 1st and 2nd floor restrooms. Restrooms on 2M, the restrooms on the Student Union side of 3rd floor, 4th floor, and 5th floor remain open.

The 5th floor study area remains closed for preparation of the Quiet Study Zone. Special Collections and Archives and all 5th floor offices remain open and accessible by south stairs or the operating elevator in the bank of 3 elevators.

Construction on the Automated Retrieval Center between the library and the Student Union is moving forward.

If you find the noise challenging, do not hesitate to ask for earplugs at the Circulation Desk.

STARS, Showcase of Text, Archives, Research & Scholarship, is the digital institutional repository of content by, for, or about UCF. In less than two years, the repository has garnered over 500,000 downloads from 22,504 organizations and institutions in 223 countries.

American history is a broad and varied topic. It ranges from the native inhabitants who formed communities here thousands of years ago to the creation of a new nation of states to the dreamers who immigrate to these shores today. It is a vast tract of information to cover, but it is important that we all learn about our past. As Edmund Burke said in Reflections on the Revolution in France, “Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it.”

The founders of the United States, beyond their faults and foibles, began this nation with a grand and noble sentiment of “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity….”

Never forget “We the people” is us.

Click on the link below to see the full list, descriptions, and catalog links for the 20 titles on American History suggested by UCF Library employees.

1st & 2nd Floors

Restrooms on the 1st and 2nd Floors in the “back half” of the building are closed for renovation. Newly renovated restrooms are open on the 3rd and 4th Floors.

3rd Floor

The “back half” of the library is closed on the 3rd floor for the installation of sprinklers. Need a book on the shelves G – HT? Find it in our catalog and click on the “Place a Hold” link. You will be notified by email when you can pick up your book at the Circulation Desk.

5th Floor

Quiet Study space remains closed for Construction.

South Stairwell

Closed on all floors, use only in case of emergency.

More information about the 21st Century Library project is at: http://library.ucf.edu/21st/ You can check there for any work alerts. Earplugs remain available at the Circulation Desk.